David
Hunter Strother’s name was once a household word in the United States as a
writer and illustrator for “Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.”Born in Martinsburg, he was one of a very
few families who took the Union side in the Civil War. His Southern roots and
cosmopolitan worldview allowed him, however, to see both the nobility and
foibles of the Shenandoah Valley’s people, his people.

Prior
to hostilities at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, SC, Jefferson County’s two
delegates, Alfred Barbour and Logan Osborne, voted against any motion to secede
from the Union.Residents knew war
would be fought here – where the B&O Railroad wandered into Virginia and
its capture could paralyze all Union efforts to supply war to the West.Armies could go into Maryland across the
Potomac at Williamsport, Shepherdstown, and Harper’s Ferry, increasing this
area’s crucial strategic importance. Having grown more wheat than any of 118
counties in Virginia in 1840, this fertile farm area would become a wartime
source of food for both men and horses, like it or not.

Slavery
wasn’t the chief issue here, protecting home and hearth was. With enslavement
fading away here during the 1850s, as shown in Census records, an astonishing
1600 mostly white males nevertheless enlisted in the Army of Northern Virginia
out of a population of some 14,000.Blacks, such as town barber, Wesley Seibert of Shepherdstown, became
camp cook for Company B of the 2nd Virginia Regiment; younger blacks
were servants with a young officer; African-American women kept up affairs at
the plantations and homes.A great
number attached themselves to Gen. Banks’ Union forces as they moved through
the county early in the war; and many able-bodied black men went north to
enlist in the Union army after January 1, 1863.The stubborn presence of African-Americans pressed President
Lincoln to confront the issue of enslavement squarely, leading up to the
Emancipation Proclamation in September, 1862.

Strother
describes in two articles for “Harper’s” how northern newspapers got it wrong
about the Southern male as a potential soldier.He also explores the straightforward reasons guiding a young
man’s decisions to enlist into the army.

Men in war, especially together from the same small
town, fought for each other’s survival.

“The New York papers speak of the Southern people as ‘effete;’ and
there seems to be an impression prevailing generally in the North that the
physique of the Southern people is deteriorated by a life of luxurious and
dissolute idleness. If the dapper ideologist who entertains such an idea should
happen to come in contact with some hardy Southern mountaineer carrying a
hundred and fifty pound buck on his shoulder - some stark and sinewy swamper
with his swivel of a ducking-gun - some hard-riding Tony Lumpkin of the rural
gentry, the preux chevalier of tournaments, cock-fights, and quarter-races, he
would presently find out who was ‘effete.’

“There is probably not a population to be found who, by their
habits of life, occupation, and amusements, are better fitted for soldiers than
that of the Southern States. Horses and firearms are their playthings from
childhood. Impatient of the restraints of school houses and work shops they
seek life and pleasure in the soil, and thus early learn the topography of
nature, the ways of the fields and forests, swamps, and mountains. Their social
and political life, but little restrained by law or usage, develops a vigorous
individuality. For the most part, ignorant of the luxuries and refinements of
cities, they prefer bacon and whisky to venison and champagne. Tall, athletic,
rough, and full of fire and vitality, the half-horse, half-alligator type still
predominates in the lower and middle classes of the South.”

This account describes
the social pressures to enlist in Charles Town. - ED

“While there were still a few men found who stubbornly struggled
against the sweeping current, the women of all ages and conditions threw
themselves into it without hesitation or reserve. Their voluble tongues
discussed the great question as rationally and philosophically as might be
expected under the circumstances, while their nimble fingers aided more
intelligently in solving the problem of clothing and equipping the hastily
levied defenders of ‘God’s glory and Southern rights.’

“Sewing societies were organized, and delicate hands which had
never before engaged in ruder labor than the hemming of a ruffle now bled in
the strife with gray jeans and tent cloth. Haversacks, knapsacks, caps,
jackets, andtents were manufactured by
hundreds and dozens.

The gift most in vogue from a young lady to her favored knight was
a headdress imitated from those worn by the British troops in India and called
a Havelock. Laden with musket, sabre, pistol, and bowie-knife, no youth
considered his armament complete unless he had one of these silly clouts
stretched over his hat. Woe to the youth who did not need a Havelock; who,
owing to natural indisposition or the prudent counsel of a father or a friend,
hesitated to join the army of the South. The curse of Clan Alpin on those who
should prove recreant to the sign of the fiery cross was mere dramatic noise
compared with the curse that blighted his soul. His schoolmates and companions
who had already donned ‘the gray’ scarce concealed their scorn. His sisters,
rallied, reproached, and pouted, blushing to acknowledge his ignominy. His
Jeannette, lately so tender and loving, now refused his hand in the dance, and,
passing him with nose in air, bestowed her smiles and her bouquet upon some
gallant rival with belt and buttons. Day-after-day he saw the baskets loaded
with choice viands, roasted fowls, pickles, cakes, and potted sweetmeats, but
not for him. Wherever he went there was a braiding of caps and coats, a
gathering of flowers and weaving of wreaths, but none for him - no scented and
embroidered handkerchiefs waved from carriage-windows as he rode by. The genial
flood of social sympathy upon which he had hitherto floated so blandly had left
him stranded on the icy shore. Then come the cheering regiments with their
drums and banners, the snorting squadrons of glossy prancing steeds the
jingling of knightly spurs, the stirring blast of the trumpets. There they went
- companionship, love, life, glory, all sweeping by to Harper’s Ferry!

“Alas! poor boy, what sense of duty or prudent counsels could hold
him in the whirl of this moral maelstrom? What did he care for the vague terror
of an indictment for treason, or the misty doctrine of Federal supremacy? What
did he know of nationality beyond the circle of friends and kindred? What was
his sneaking, apologetic, unsympathetic life worth after all? The very bondsman
who held his horse as he mounted for his morning ride seemed to reproach him,
as, touching his hat, he remarks, suggestively, ‘Young master, dis hoss of
yourn is mighty proud and mettlesome - he would look fine in the cavalry.’ Very
well; in two days - more or less - you might see young master in the cavalry,
prancing gallantly with the rest of them, a Havelock flapping about his ears,
spurs jingling on his heels, the light of manhood rekindled in his eye, and a
fresh posy in his button-hole, atoning for his former hesitancy by
distinguished seal in the great cause.

“But according to my judgment the greater number of these young
volunteers were moved neither by social pressure nor political prejudice.The all-pervading love of adventure and
fighting instincts were the most successful recruiting officers of the
occasion. For they had heard of battles, and had longed to follow to the field
some warlike lord - so at the first roll of the drum they rushed cheerily from
school house and office, counter and work shop, field and fireside, earnest,
eager, reckless fellows, marching with a free and vigorous step, sitting their
horses like wild Pawnees, most admirable material for a rebellion, just as good
soldiers for the Government if perchance the rub-a-dub of the Union drums had
first aroused their martial ardor.”